Writer, director, and star Albert Brooks proves there are laughs after death in this celestial comedy from 1991. In Brooks' original vision of the afterlife, the dead are required to defend their earthly actions—in courtroom fashion—in a kind of purgatory known here as Judgment City, before they can pass on to a higher plain of existence. Brooks finds his feckless former existence attacked by Lee Grant's steely prosecutor and defended by a glad-handing Rip Torn. But it takes the exemplary life led by an angelic Meryl Streep to convince Brooks of the importance of leading a full and fearless life.